Jonathan Chait and I don't agree on many things. But this piece on the primary is masterful:
The morning after Tuesday's primaries, Hillary Clinton's campaign released a memo titled "The Path to the Presidency." I eagerly dug into the paper, figuring it would explain how Clinton would obtain the Democratic nomination despite an enormous deficit in delegates. Instead, the memo offered a series of arguments as to why Clinton should run against John McCain--i.e., "Hillary is seen as the one who can get the job done"--but nothing about how she actually could. Is she planning a third-party run? Does she think Obama is going to die? The memo does not say.The reason it doesn't say is that Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive. She isn't going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race, but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead.
That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would need to win with superdelegates. But, with most superdelegates already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining ones by a margin of better than two to one. And superdelegates are going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate lead the size of Obama's. The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her. Hence her flurry of attacks, her oddly qualified response as to whether Obama is a Muslim ("not as far as I know"), her repeated suggestions that John McCain is more qualified.
It's really amazing to me that HRC can suck so much and yet Bill still decided to get a BJ from someone else!
The problem with this strategy, of course, is that it undercuts any argument HRC would have about why she's the better candidate than McCain.
But hey, who cares about winning the White House for the Democrats? It's all about the Clintons' legacy!!
You have to start with this over-arching truth--what the Clintons care about most is the Clintons. From there, the explanation for her recent comments is fairly clear: They know it's unlikely that they can win the nomination without destroying their own chances in the general election. So they keep running for two reasons--first, on the increasingly unlikely chance that Obama self-destructs and the nomination drops in their laps anyway, and second, to tear down Obama in the hopes he loses the general to McCain. Then Hillary runs again in 2012. Think that's way too convoluted and Machiavellian? Remember, this is the Clintons we're talking about.
This piece by Chait is just one big, steaming pile of Obamacrap. To wit:
The reason it doesn't say is that Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive.
Why? Because she needs superdelegates to win? Guess what -- so does Obama! Does that make him, too, repulsive?
She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead.
So what? She certainly doesn't need "15 more Ohios" to reduce his pledged delegate delegate lead. She doesn't need to eliminate his pledged delegate lead because there's no special prize for being first pass the post in pledged delegates.
That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would need to win with superdelegates.
So does Obama.
But, with most superdelegates already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining ones by a margin of better than two to one.
Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on whether or not all of Obama's superdelegates stay Obama's. If she bloodies him up enough, not all of them will necessarily stay on the reservation. A number of superdelegates have switched from Obama to Clinton. It's certainly possible for movement to occur in the opposite direction.
And superdelegates are going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate lead the size of Obama's.
What is there to overturn? A lead in pledged delegates is just that, a lead. It's not a nominating majority. Besides, she may very well be able to counter his lead in pledged delegates with a lead in, um, actual popular votes.
The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her.
No need for Sullivanesque language. The less dramatic way to say it is: she wins the superdelegates if she convinces them he's a risky bet, or she's more electable.
Yup, he's a masterful Obama propagandist alright. Actually, he's not. Sullivan's much better.
I am of two minds about the whole issue - on the one hand, I think we're making a bigger deal about what the primary fight will mean. Lots of conservative Republicans have a real hard time wrapping their minds around supporting John McCain, especially after his open flirting with the idea of being Kerry's running mate, his campaign finance positions, etc. etc. However, when confronted with the choice of John McCain or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, there is little doubt in my mind who gets their vote.
I think this same dynamic will apply to Democrats once the nomination fight is over.
HOWEVER - and here I think this does matter a lot - those active and engaged base supports do provide the proverbial boots on the ground needed to win an election. They provide the money. They provide the organizers of vans to the polling booths. They are a massive source of enegy, money and local spokespersons that give them value way beyond simply pulling the lever. I don't think McCain will have those conservative Republican activists, or rather, he won't have them in the numbers that GWB did (who they adore). If HRC wrests the nomination from Obama, she won't have activists in the same number that Obama would have. And this could make a difference.
Beyond that, I think it would silly (from an electoral success point of view) for the Demcratic Party to nominate a candidate who is intensely polarizing to run against a Republican nominee who has broad appeal among independents and Democrats, in addition to being a media darling.
Claudius:
The problem is Dems don't give primary losers 2nd chances. Look at the history. They can try to run a 2nd time, but it never works out. In fact most times they get creamed.
It's really amazing to me that HRC can suck so much and yet Bill still decided to get a BJ from someone else!
Congrats, Megan. Your career now consists of writing a blog that attract responses like this.
'Caligula'? What is that, Bill's nom de plume?
It's funny, every time I want to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt, she pulls some "as far as I know" crap. She knows exactly what she's doing. Glad she can get elected on her merits, like 35 years of experience, like calling into question the veracity of a 12 year old rape victim while she was practicing law in Arkansas.
Or maybe her campaign likening Obama to Ken Starr. Well, now that they've opened the door, maybe we can start talking about the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' to do in her husband's presidency. Of course, it had nothing to do with her husband lying under oath to a grand jury...
Yes, I think the country would feel better reliving the last 2 years of his presidency again and again. Forget rising unemployment, a huge structural deficit, rampant inflation, foreign oil dependency, the American people want to see payback on the Clintons' enemies.
There are a lot of people who assume that anyone who screws the rich must be helping the poor. The reasoning, I guess, is that they see the economy as a zero-sum game, so if the rich take it in the shorts then it must be happy times for the needy.
In reality, of course, the economy isn't zero-sum; it is possible for everyone to win, and possible for everyone to lose. Governments are a lot better at arranging for the latter.
Caligula, did you forget that since Super Tuesday (aka as Firewall 1.0) Obama has picked up 53 superdelegates to 2 for Clinton? Hardly seems to offer much hope to you, does it? March 4th was a draw, not the win Clinton craved, and now we know that there was a net swing of 8 delegates to Obama after California got the math right. Meanwhile, Hillary has spent her time kissing up to John McCain, and has made it clear that she can't win, but is determined to take the Democratic party down with her. Oh, and of course, she and Bill are still corrupt, sexual perverted and incapable of actually managing anything. So, no change there, anyway. but of course, please, do support your candidate blindly. I am sure the Hillary cult compensates you handsomely.
I think the solution to the problem is obvious: Obama should drop out now and endorse Hillary. If the goal is to beat McCain, and it's a given that Hillary is selfish and cares more about herself than the party, then Obama should be unselfish and unify the party now, by dropping out. I'm sure Hillary will even give him the veep spot right away.
she and Bill are still corrupt, sexual perverted and incapable of actually managing anything.
Well, now we know why Caligula supports her.
I think the solution to the problem is obvious: Obama should drop out now and endorse Hillary.
Bingo. Why delay the inevitable?
What an asinine piece. Of course the Obamabots like Megan will eat it up, but it doesn't even discuss a revote in Florida and Michigan, fercrissakes.
Typical Obamabot spin.
SDS wrote: Congrats, Megan. Your career now consists of writing a blog that attract responses like this.
Or comments like that.
How, pray, is HRC going to "destroy" Obama's general election viability? Only two ways exist, folks:
(1) She tells terrible lies about him. He eats babies for breakfast, once let a pudgy white intern suck his mighty black cock in the Senate cloakroom, et cetera. On the basis of these lies the general public decides they don't like Obama, and so his polls vis-a-vis McCain plummet.
But this only works if the time between lie and election is so short that the accused doesn't have time to rebut, e.g. the George Bush DUI story in 2000, or any number of "October Surprises," or if the accused doesn't have the money or media advantage to get his defense heard. Neither apply here. There's ample time between the last primary and the convention for Obama to make his reply, and he's got ample money (and a media that's thoroughly his bitch to boot).
(2) She reveals some terrible truths about Obama, and the general public decides, on this basis, that's he actually not the Messiah, his polls plummet et cetera.
But...how is telling the truth about your opponent a "repulsive" attempt to "destroy" someone? It doesn't matter whether HRC does something like this for mean, evil, personal motives, or noble, laudable, angelic motives. Either way, she'd be doing a service to the country, saving us from electing a doofus. Just the kind of useful vetting effect we're supposed to get from a competitive democracy.
Basically, Chait is just in the tank here and willing to label "repulsive" any action that might derail Darth Obama from fulfilling his Destiny. If the Clinton campaign revealed that Obama was a robot and had the blueprints of his emotion chip as proof, Chait would complain about Clinton's cynical playing of the subhuman android card.
I suppose what's also on display is Chait's typical lefty intellectual's contempt for the intelligence of Joe Average. He probably really fears that Clinton might tell lies about Obama and they'll stick indefinitely because the American voter is a dumfuk who can't see through a lie, even with a well-funded Obama machine to help him with the facts he needs to do so.
How about a bit of common sense here?
1. The primary process is way too long - 5 months or so. In politics that is a lifetime, as they say.
2. If one candidate manages to get past the 50% point they are the "presumptive nominee." Why presumptive? Well, they could die, for example, or a big scandal could unfold.
3. So, when the convention arrives, nearer the election, the delegates choose a nominee they think is best able to win that election. They are not bound to vote for the nominee they are pledged to by the electorate. Please understand this.
4. So, what will happen, and has happened in the past, is that the delegates will convene and select the nominee that has the best chance of winning the election, guided by the voters input from 5-8 months prior.
5. To those who think that the voters input from many months ago "must" prevail - I generally agree, but not in all circumstances. Suppose a scandal evolves that makes the voters' choice essentially unelectable - should that candidate prevail? Taken a step farther, if the voters' choice from February is far behind in the polls in August, will or should he or she prevail if the delegate count is essentially equal?
6. To see those who believe in markets argue for stale pricing in this case is amusing.
The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her.
It seems like it'll be a Pyrrhic victory to me, because by doing this she's also sabotaging her own viability. All those excited new voters Obama has brought into the process are not going to vote for the woman who slimed him out of it, meaning either low turnout or serious leakage to Nader. And framing the general election as a referendum on toughness, national security credentials, and readiness to answer the red phone at 3 A.M. strikes me as borderline suicidal against an opponent like McCain.
I suppose what's also on display is Chait's typical lefty intellectual's contempt for the intelligence of Joe Average. He probably really fears that Clinton might tell lies about Obama and they'll stick indefinitely because the American voter is a dumfuk who can't see through a lie, even with a well-funded Obama machine to help him with the facts he needs to do so.
Translation: He's afraid that the Standard Dem Campaign Operating Procedure that's worked so well these last couple of decades just might also work against His Holiness, The Obamahdi. And that's just unacceptable.
If the Democratic party nominates a candidate who did not win the majority of delegates selected by primaries and caucuses, I will not vote in the presidential election.
If the Democrat Party nominates a candidate, I will vote for McCain in the general election.
....and Caligula just proves Chait's point.
Hillary has an outside shot to win. But the only way she can do it is to pull out the knives and try to mortally wound Obama. If she pulls it off, she will have alienated a huge number of Democrats and potential Democratic voters in the general, decreasing the Dems' chance of winning the White House. If she falls short, she's left the Democratic nominee in a weakened state heading into the general, decreasing the Dems' chance of winning the White House. Either way, the Democrats lose. That is not the type of person you want to be the leader of your party. If she's willing to put her own ambition before the interests of the party during the primary campaign, just imagine how she will throw Democrats under the bus when it suits her purpose once she is the president.
M. Simon - thanks for the guffaw, I needed that. I'm really tired of all the sniping and threats - "if X doesn't get the nomination then I'm voting for McCain!" For the love of Gawd, people - no you're not!
I'm sure there are people out there who will vote for McCain if their preferred candidate doesn't get the nod but I sincerely hope that once we have a nominee and calm the f**k down, that people will realize that issues like not having a far right Supreme Court are more important than pouting. (I know the feelings go far beyond pouting but that's how they often come across in forums like this.)
Mesa raises some interesting points about the importance of the race evolving over time and the possibility of a scandal making the candidate with the most pledged delegates suddenly unelectable. What would the supes do then? And what kind of scandal? After all, Bill Clinton had the Gennifer Flowers scandal and he still became the nominee.
60% of Americans still believe that Saddam had active WMD programs at the time of the invasion.
Tell me again how smart the American voter is, how clever he is at seeing through the falsehoods politicians tell. Tell me again how pernicious lies are ineffective in the general election.
This isn't to say that the average American is dumb. It's to say that the average American's unwillingness to wade through a swamp of accusations, denials and countercharges means that dirty politics works.
"Typical Obamabot spin.
Posted by Al | March 7, 2008 7:03 PM "
Well, now we know who the Republican sock puppets are really afraid of.
I'm no HRC fan (not an Obama or McCain fan either). But criticizing a selection process that uses delegates free to vote for whoever they think best, rather than for those who won primaries, seems wrong. I think we got better candidates back when the conventions really picked the nominees instead of having them chosen on the basis of who could promise Iowa farmers the most pork or convince the people of Ohio that their old industries will come back. We used to have the occasional primary mostly to see how candidates could perform on the trail, but picking all or most of the delegates the way we do now is new, and not necessarily good. Besides, the old process spared us the agony of having to watch a year-long campaign.
So HRC releases a memo that does not attack Obama, and with our hostess's blessing it is spun into a vicious attack on Obama based on nothing more than the author's assertion that such an attack, though not made, is inevitable.
It seems to me that what's really going on here is this: Obama is running on aura, and his supporters must keep the aura from being dimmed, because there's no recovering from a dimmed aura and Obama's actual record will not win a general election against McCain, even post-Bush.
There are lots of people who think Obama's better polling against McCain is a mirage, that his aura cannot be maintained until November regardless of whether HRC shuts up and goes home prematurely, and that HRC would actually be the nominee more likely to win. But those people are now expected (by Chait if not by Obama) to fall in line behind the aura. They would betray their own best judgment if they accepted that invitation, and they have no reason to believe Chait's judgment is better than theirs.
Justin JJ --
Since you have no faith in democracy, what kind of system would you like to see take its place?
Leadership based on the always amazingly good judgement and predictive ability of the writers of TNR and other elites?
Justin JJ --
Since you have no faith in democracy, what kind of system would you like to see take its place?
Leadership based on the always amazingly good judgement and predictive ability of the writers of The Atlantic, TNR, National Review and other elites?
Sorry for the double post. I thought the first one was interrupted.
Acknowledging a repeatedly demonstrated election dynamic doesn't equal having no faith in democracy. Or do you think that American democracy is so perfectly executed that it can't be improved, that everyone else can just give up because it's been done to perfection here?
JJ Justin --
I do believe it can be improved -- one way to improve it is to broaden the voices that are able to participate in the conversation.
The "lies" you suggest people swallow too easily, let's remember, are being spread by our elites, for their own purposes.
So I don't think the problem is that Americans are "dumb" as much as it is that those with power, including the power to control or influence the flow of information, are often dishonest and self-serving in how the use that power.
Thankfully, a great many Americans don't pay any, or pay only very little, attention to the media narratives. They make their political decisions based on their personal values and life experiences.
Which is a good thing. It is important for our meritocrats to remember from time to time that while the college professor knows many things that the janitor doesn't know, the janitor also knows some important things that the professor doesn't know. And there is value in both perspective being included in the conversation.
Caligula nails it. The indignation about Hillary not being able win it without superdelegates loses pretty much all its force when it's pointed out that Obama is in exactly the same situation.
So then we get the fallback position, statements like: "If the Democratic party nominates a candidate who did not win the majority of delegates selected by primaries and caucuses, I will not vote in the presidential election." So this person won't vote unless the person who gets 50.1% of 80.3% of the delegates is the nominee, and the 19.7% of the convention represented by the superdelegates is a distraction and an irrelevancy.
So what was the point of the "superdelegate" mechanism in the first place? One is tempted to answer, "Yet one more example of the Democratic Party creating an unworkable mess in an effort to fix their prior unworkable messes, in their ongoing effort to achieve ideal fairness and utopian perfection in [insert subject here]."
As a Republican, I don't much mind when the subject inserted is "the Democratic Party nominating process," and the "prior unworkable messes" are those of 1972 and 1976. I do mind when the subject inserted is "running the United States."
Caligula deliberately misread what Chait was arguing. It's not whether one candidate or the other will need superdelegate votes. The risk is that a candidate who loses by pledged delegates but wins because superdelegate votes overcome that loss, takes a big hit on legitimacy and goes into the election wounded, at least.
If Hillary wins the nomination by swinging superdelegates (and/or by seating Michigan and Florida), the Obama part of the party will feel strongly that a genuine popular movement was beaten by backroom politics, and that will likely cost her the election because it rends the Democrats. That's the sense in which it's repulsive: an engineered victory that beats a real grassroots movement.
Chait is an idiot, and an avid Obama supporter, too.
Clinton faces an uphill battle, there is no denying that, but, after last Tuesday, her candidacy is viable once more. This will go all the way to the convention. Clinton will win Pennsylvania next month pretty much the way she won Ohio on Tuesday. By the time the primaries are over, Obama will have about the same lead in pledged delegates he has now, but he, too, will need to win via the superdelegates- a point that is rarely pointed out by the morons in the media.
In addition, it seems pretty clear, now, that Michigan and Florida will be revoted at some point after April- and Clinton will win both of these revotes as long as they are not turned into caucuses. I think that by the time of the convention, Clinton will actually have received more votes than Obama overall.
On the issue of which candidate is more electable in the fall, I think most people are making an enormous misjudgement. The overwhelming conventional wisdom is that Obama is better against McCain than is Clinton, but this greatly underestimates two very important factors- factors that have revealed themselves repeatedly in the Democratic primaries themselves to be important: (1) Obama is black, and (2) Obama has Islamic roots on his father's side. When faced with a generic poll, some respondants will not want to be thought a racist by the pollster, so they will respond that they will vote for Obama over McCain, even if they have no intention to do so. This is a real effect that has been demonstrated repeatedly in general elections time and again. I think it is quite conservative to subtract 5% off of Obama's generic polling data vs McCain. There is certainly a similar effect with Clinton being female, but I suspect the magnitude is smaller, and all the voting results to date suggest it is significantly smaller.
Early results suggest that Obama is winning the Wyoming caucuses today.
Why is it that Hillary cannot win caucuses? She is the 'inevitable' candidate and she has all the resources a candidate could want, including Bill's enormous database of supporters.
It seems to be accepted that Clinton just can't win the caucus states. WHY NOT? I really don't understand.
I agree with Chait and Megan. Brilliant article. I wish the Demo leadership would read and act on it.
But the only way she can do it is to pull out the knives and try to mortally wound Obama. If she pulls it off, she will have alienated a huge number of Democrats and potential Democratic voters in the general, decreasing the Dems' chance of winning the White House.
And if Obama wins he "will have alienated a huge number of Democrats," too. You gotta love the self-absorption of the Obamabots. It seems not to occur to them that millions of voters strongly prefer Hillary Clinton, and will understandably be pissed off (just as Obama fans) if their preferred candidate does not win. Indeed, more primary voters have pulled the lever for Clinton than for Obama thus far (Wyoming doesn't change that). Indeed, if it is actual Democrats we're talking about - as opposed to independents and Republicans -- Clinton's advantage is fairly massive. If avoiding outrage among Democrats is the biggest rationale for nominating Obama, he should concede this evening.
The risk is that a candidate who loses by pledged delegates but wins because superdelegate votes overcome that loss, takes a big hit on legitimacy and goes into the election wounded, at least.
There you go again. This talk of a candidate "who loses by pledged delegates but wins" via superdelegates is asinine in the extreme. There's no special prize for ending on the fourteen yard line -- two yards ahead of your opponent, who's only made it to the sixteen yard line -- when you both need to get into the end zone. Finishing ahead by ninety pledged delegates but still 390 shy of a nominating majority is not "winning." Finishing behind by ninety pledged delegates and 480 shy of a nominating majority is not "losing." There's no "loss" to overcome. There's merely the delegate calculus saying you need to get more superdelegates than the other guy. And if you can convince said superdelegates that they ought to throw their support to you, you might be able to do just that.
Kucinich_fan,
Obama wins the caucuses because caucus-goers are the more fervent voters. Also, he had a deliberate strategy to contest the caususes, something for which Clinton did not plan. She foolishly believed she would be the nominee by February 5th, Obama did not have the luxury to be so complacent.
The caucuses seem to attract the younger and more motivated voters who don't just want to cast a vote, they want to be involved, man! Those voters are breaking for Obama.
The difference you're ignoring is the perception of how the other one got the nomination. If Hillary (or Obama) is perceived to win it through trickery, through slander, through smoky backroom deals, the portion of people who'll vote for them as their second choice shrinks. If Hillary wins or ties the pledged delegates, most Obamanauts will vote for her (and the reverse). If she obviously loses the pledged delegates but wins the nomination, a lot of those independents and die-hard Obamanauts will stay at home or vote for McCain.
There's a difference between feeling like your candidate lost fair and square, vs. being robbed by the process.
You may be blind to the problem, but thankfully most Democrats aren't. It's not a question of mechanism, it's a question of the perception of how they won among those who voted for the other one. If the Obamanauts stay home because they feel robbed, Hillary will lose. And they'll stay home or vote for McCain in large numbers if she seems to win a technical victory that overturns a popular result.
What if Obama ends up with more pledged delegates but Hillary wins the popular vote? What good argument is there that one is definitively more legitimate than the other? I thought after 2000 some Democrats are supposedly on the popular vote bandwagon?
Also, since we're talking about the perception of how they'd end up winning, wouldn't a lot of Hillary supporters, especially women, be pissed if they perceived that Hillary was forced to end her candidacy early because party leaders and the media pressured her to? Wouldn't some of these voters stay home or vote for McCain?
That's a very good question, and turns the popular vs. procedural victory situation on its head in her favour. I suspect Hillary's campaign is saving that argument to deploy if they lose the pledged delegates, to justify going after a procedural win.
Likely. I imagine Dean weighs that every day. If it were Edwards instead of Hillary, I imagine the party elders would have already approached him for a sit down talk. Hillary vs. Barack is a really interesting matchup just because there's so many landmines to avoid.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the last week has been Hillary's twice floating the idea of Obama as Veep, which I'm pretty certain is a conciliatory gesture to take the edge of the harsh they've been slamming him with. It's pretty obviously a carrot and stick approach.
Bottom line: If Obama enters the convention with a lead in pledged delegates and doesn't leave the nominee, there will be riots in Denver, the Democratic party will lose the black vote for a generation or more, and Hillary Clinton will be remembered as Ralph Nader raised to the power of 100.
The caucuses seem to attract the younger and more motivated voters who don't just want to cast a vote, they want to be involved, man! Those voters are breaking for Obama.
Wyoming: where the bison are brown and the people are white. It's terrific that Obama is turning out excited young people all over the country.
It gives me hope. Hope the Clintons can't kill.
millions of voters strongly prefer Hillary Clinton, and will understandably be pissed off (just as Obama fans) if their preferred candidate does not win.
Obviously there are fewer enthusiastic Clinton supporters, since she has lost the caucuses across the country. Her supporters and her campaign seem to have conceded them.
he had a deliberate strategy to contest the caususes, something for which Clinton did not plan. She foolishly believed she would be the nominee by February 5th
A foolish decision, yes. Not indicative of a person ready to assume the presidency.
Even so, it's been a month since her 3 am phone call -- the Feb. 5 results. Why not try to mobilize for the caucuses now? Or is her enthusiastic support base just not big enough?
One would almost think her results were more indicative of name recognition and the support of local political machines in big blue states than of overwhelming support from the party rank and file...
It seems to be accepted that Clinton just can't win the caucus states. WHY NOT? I really don't understand.
As Justin JJ rightly pointed out above, caucus voters and primary voters are just different critters. The interesting question for the current debate is whether one form of selection is a better predictor of general election performance than the other. My intuition is that that primaries would be more reliable, but I'm certainly willing to be instructed otherwise -- anyone know of a good analysis?
Unrelatedly, am I wrong in recalling that the superdelegate system was adopted precisely so that an elite consisting of professional Democratic politicians would have an opportunity to overrule a "people's" choice they viewed as non-optimal for the general election? If that's the case, didn't everybody know going in that the supers would be expected to exercise their judgment independently of popular vote or pledged delegate count?
I don't recall where I read it (Ygglesias, I think), but the origin of the superdelegate system in the 70s was to simply get the senior party apparatchiks involved. Prior to superdelegates, the Democratic officeholders and mandarins were difficult, if not impossible, to get out of their offices to campaign for a potential nominee, or express a preference for one. It was intended to be an inclusive exercise. I don't think anyone foresaw them possibly exercising a veto over the primaries and caucuses.
An interesting problem lies on the horizon in the event of a brokered convention: No one knows how to run one. The normal way is for the DNC to fund it, volunteers to run it, and the nominee's people to set the program. Nobody has any idea how to split time equitably between Clinton and Obama, how to resolve who speaks first and who last, or even who has the practical authority to propose and decide on a mechanism for resolving those issues.
For fans of raw electoral chaos, a brokered convention will be like winning the lottery.
One thing that seems to be a non-factor in most discussions is the black vote. As much as people want to ignore that, and just argue Hillary's case by saying, "We can purposely discount the voted delegate numbers because superdelegates are not bound", we must realistically ask ourselves if the Democratic Party is going to let that happen.
For one, aside from pissing off the broader Obama support and pretty much invalidating the voting process (because you are essentially telling people that regardless of your vote, the party will do as it wills), you are also telling black voters, after a 300 plus year wait,that a black man who has gotten the popular support will NOT be voted in because despite his support, and beating the other candidate, it has been pre-determined he cannot win the election.
That, will not happen. But it's the argument that Hillary supporters, and Obama haters--not necessarily overlapping groups--are making, despite themselves.
CQ Weekly has a piece here:
http://tinyurl.com/3amaxa
Relevant passage:
But the one issue that was never in doubt, Hunt says, is that superdelegates were supposed to be free to decide how to vote — not just rubber-stamp the results of the primaries and caucuses. “We fully expected them to use their discretion, or judgment,” said Hunt. “There certainly was never any attention to making them just automatically have to follow the results in their states.”
Finn, I would certainly expect the supers, in exercising their judgment, to take account of all relevant factors, including the degree of disaffection anticipated from the loser's supporters. I'm just addressing the notion that the supers have some moral obligation to vote according to the pledged delegate majority, or the popular vote majority, or the winner of the super's own state, or some other predetermined factor. My recollection was that the supers were created as a source of independent judgment and were expected to vote independently, and I think CQ Weekly confirms that.
Of course, the law of unintended consequences fully applies.
One point I haven't seen addressed is whether or not any sort of organized voting for the supers can occur. I'm not aware of any caucus for them, or meetings, or any other means by which they could say "our votes will match the proportions of the pledged delegates", and then divide up the room in the right amounts.
I'm not sure it even makes sense to talk about the supers mirroring the pledged delegates except in the sense of a vague threat of "you better vote for the winner of the pledged delegates or there'll be hell to pay." There's something vaguely threatening in any talk of how the superdelegates should vote as a whole.
Here is Dick Morris's perspective. He sees the same outcome I see for the final primaries/caucuses, but his opinion is that the race is already over, and that Obama will win- that there is no chance the superdelegates will overturn Obama's lead.
The difference you're ignoring is the perception of how the other one got the nomination. If Hillary (or Obama) is perceived to win it through trickery, through slander, through smoky backroom deals, the portion of people who'll vote for them as their second choice shrinks.
If Hillary wins, it will be only after she seriously trips up her opponent, and/or wins the popular vote. It's not going to seem like "trickery" to refrain from nominating a seriously wounded candidate whose prospects of victory look dim. If Obama maintains his pledged delegate lead, avoids mistakes, and wins the popular vote, he'll be the nominee. If Hillary significantly erodes his pledged delegate lead (certainly a possibility if she more or less fights him to a draw outside of Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan, and then wins solid victories in those three states), wins the popular vote, and forces Obama to make mistakes, I believe she wins.
Carl Pham says: "Only two ways exist, folks:"
What about
(3) Obama suffers an "unfortunate incident". Various lefties, including Obama's own wife, have already been plugging this idea for a long time, to the point where if it happens the public might well assume it's the work of a rightWingNut rather "Arkancide."
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